8 Reasons Why You Need Customer Service Automation.
In this article, we will be talking about Automated Customer service and 8 reasons why you need customer service automation.
But before we start let’s first look at some key stats derived from various studies about customer service:
• 63% of consumers expect businesses they deal with to know their customers, their needs and expectations, while 76% of the B2B buyers expect the same thing.
• 89% say a quick response to an initial inquiry is important when deciding which company to buy from. (Zendesk)
• 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service. (HubSpot Research)
• More than 50% of customers across all age groups use their phones to reach out to a service team, making it the most-used channel for customer service. (Zendesk)
• About 60% of customers feel that the most frustrating part of the customer service experience is long holds and wait times. (Zendesk)
Customer service is one of the make or break departments of any organisation. Every customer expects and demands a great customer service experience, alongside the product and service a company offers. From the above stats, we can make out some key expectations of customers that the customer service should:
• give prompt response
• resolve issues quickly and effectively
• be consistent in quality
• give self-service solutions
• be easily accessible
With ever-increasing customers, it is difficult for businesses to cope up with all these expectations of quick and personalized attention. Recent studies have shown that 75% of people believe that it takes longer to reach a human agent. So, for a company to give 24/7 customer service to all of the customers with a limited number of human resources is impossible. Live customer service agents can handle only one customer at a time.
Doing this, again and again, reduces their productivity that results in poorer customer service.
Now, as you’re reading this article, probably you’re also facing the same issues and we have a solution, Customer Connect, that’ll fit your need.
Customer service has been among the very first business functions to adopt automation and it has been proving to be a savior in today’s scenario. Companies are adapting to technologies and services like customer connect, leading their customer service to successfully meet customer demands and expectations. By implementing automation in their customer service in some way or the other, let it be through CRM, FAQs, chatbots, AI messaging, social media interactions, or emails, it has been proving to be the perfect solution for today’s customers.
Here’s a simplified guide to automation: Learn more about automation
For example, an AI chatbot system can handle any number of customers at a time and can be scaled to larger numbers easily. They don’t need to go for refreshments or get frustrated by handling a large number of customers to and for, therefore, can give a prompt, consistent and richer customer service experience. This is just one way of how automation can enhance your customer service, we have lined up 8 reasons for you, why you need customer service automation in your organization.
8 reasons why you need customer service automation:
- You Need to Train Them Only Once
Hiring and training any kind of employee takes both time and money. It costs to hire a call center agent and costs more to train them. Employee attrition costs also add up in this which is a common problem in customer care departments and call centers. Automation platforms allow companies huge savings in terms of time and money. Automation can provide your agents with everything they need to work efficiently leading to reduced turnover. A service like Customer connect comes with pre-programmed industry and domain knowledge, or otherwise, you only have to program or train it with whatever and however you want, but only once.
2.24/7 Available Customer Service and Support
Automated customer service is not constrained to any sick leaves, holidays, time zones or office opening timings. With customer service automation you’ll be able to provide customer service around the clock regardless of your customers’ location, circumstances or time zones. This means customers can have most of their inquiries resolved 24 hours of the day and won’t have to wait for responses. This will positively influence customer satisfaction and also shows that the company focuses and is committed to supporting customers.
3.Lower Operational Cost
Every new or innovative technology usually brings benefits in terms of cost savings with them, and so does customer service automation. Automation can provide a higher level of service for a greater time period at a fraction of the cost of traditional customer service. Automation can drastically improve your operational efficiency which in turn leads to lower customer service costs. For example, voice is an expensive channel as compared to using a chatbot and using a chatbot also frees up agents to handle requests that require more expertise.
4.Proactive and Pre-emptive Actions
Automation can deliver a level of responsiveness that is not possible for humans. Armed with machine learning and AI, virtual assistants can predict what your customers may inquire for and be prepared with answers and solutions before they even ask for them. AI-enabled automation can monitor and store an infinite amount of relevant information about the customers from the website and in-app activities for any distress indicators, identifying if the customer is facing any issue and determining what those issues are. Then the system can provide real-time support or can be prepared through FAQs or virtual service agents across the platforms that the customer may choose to enquire from.
This ability to resolve customer issues before they arise can greatly improve customer service satisfaction levels by simultaneously resolving customer complaints and reduce customer abandonment rates in the purchasing cycle.
5.Implementable on Messaging Apps
As per studies, messaging apps are now over 20% bigger than social networks. More than 2.5 billion people now use Messenger and WhatsApp. This number is expected to reach 3 billion by 2022. This makes messaging apps to be a great domain for customer service and companies have already started to adapt to it. Businesses now have the opportunity to create new revenue streams using real-time, customized customer service bots within messaging applications.
There are numerous chatbots on Facebook messenger and for other messaging apps which are helping customers who are increasingly using messaging apps to interact with brands. And with automated chatbots businesses can utilize that space effectively for customer service.
6.Easy Scalability to Higher Volume
With the increasing number of customers, you need to increase your customer service capabilities to cater to that number of customer service requests, and all those requests are expected to be resolved quickly. One way to do this is by increasing your customer service agents which you know will cost a huge amount of time and money. The more efficient and effective way of resolving this is with customer service automation.
This technology gives businesses the power to scale up to their customer service requirements at an unprecedented speed, even with limited resources. Chatbots, for example, empower businesses to respond to a sudden surge of customer service inquiries instantaneously, simply by switching on another server. With the help of AI and chatbots that continuously learn from every interaction, you can easily transition to a new market free from the hassle of employing and training new staff.
7.Personalized Customer Service
Organizations now have a huge amount of customer data. Combining automation with big data, machine learning and AI can allow organizations to deliver unrivalled personalized customer service. This means personalized product recommendations, website redesigning according to customer’s preferences, brand notification or emails timings, etc.
Personalization can greatly improve customer service interaction, promote consumer satisfaction, improve conversion to purchase, and drive repeat purchases. AI and automation can also allow your human agents to have the context to understand who they are talking to. Understand their order history, their search preferences, and what their experiences have been so far with your brand. With this information easily accessible, they will be well equipped to provide the best possible customer experience, tailored to your clients’ needs.
8.Quick Responses
As we have told you earlier quick responses are the make or break point of any interaction when it comes to customer service. Customers who receive a quick response to their query or resolution of their issue equate it with a good customer service experience. Automated customer service has the power to give prompt responses and speed up issue resolution, thus improving overall service satisfaction. For example, most of the general queries can be resolved with FAQs as they can easily answer common queries. The chatbots are not constrained to typing or researching speeds therefore not only can they reach your customers faster with self-service, but your human agents can also work quicker with a virtual assistant by their side.
AI chatbots can handle all of the customer queries and when necessary, transfer the customer to an agent.AI chatbot will also, in real-time, provide the agent with all the relevant information and data about the customer they need for good customer service.
Conclusion
By now you’d have understood why customer service automation is important for any business that aims to provide good customer service to their customers. Leading businesses have already implemented services like customer connect which helps them to automate their customer service effectively.
If you still have any further queries you can contact us and our experts will be available for your support!
